The Church as Necessary for the Act of Faith
NOTE: This follows some notes I published on a similar topic last friday on my substack, along with a video posted on my YouTube last week. Enjoy!
For those who have watched any of my content in relation to the assent of faith, divine revelation, etc., you have probably heard me make a comment on the differing relationship between the authority of God and the authority of the Church in proposing Divine Revelation, whereas God’s authority is the true and proper formal object, the Church’s authority is only described as a certain “necessary condition.”
A basic treatment of this comes from Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange,
However, the necessary condition for revealed things to be proposed to us infallibly is the proposal of revelation by the Church, who was divinely founded for this purpose with God’s assistance. After the fact of revelation, the Church is related to it as God’s minister. However, unlike the prophets and Christ, who handed on a new revelation, her role is to preserve and infallibly declare revelation. Hence, she is related to it as a condition rather than as a cause; for a cause flows positively into the effect, whereas the condition (or application of the agent to the patient) is necessary that the cause may flow into the effect but does not of itself flow into it. The Church proposes revealed [truths] but does not indeed instrumentally reveal. Hence, theologians commonly say that the Church’s proposing of revelation in no way pertains to the formal motive of faith. (De Revelatione, Vol. 1, Ch. 4, Art. 1)
To give an analogy, we can think of the formal object of intellection, i.e., being as intelligible, yet in our manner of knowing, such is known as it is abstracted from sensible things. Hence, while the object of intellection is intelligible being, it is known under the condition of its abstraction from sensible things.
The necessity for this sensation as a condition for intellection does not come from a consideration of intellection as such, but only of intellection as it exists among rational animals who depend on the senses for our knowledge.
From this, we can draw a fruitful analogy to Divine Things. We live in a period where mediate revelation is given to us rather than immediate revelation. We are not prophets or Apostles and hence are given revelation through certain appointed agents and instruments. In this way, we are like men in this world who are not immediately given knowledge like Our Lord and the angels, but are given knowledge in a mediate way through the senses.
These appointed agents and instruments are not the formal motive for faith (which is only God revealing), but are merely a certain condition applying Divine Revelation to us. It is here that the rubber meets the road in the Catholic-Protestant debate.
In order for the condition to truly apply the cause which brings about the effect in the patient, it must have some degree of proportionality so as to unite the two. For example, there must be proper dispositions in the material constitution of the body so as not to corrupt the union between body and soul. The soul brings life to the body, not the body, yet there must be proper dispositions in the body so that the union may occur.
